What is Dyspraxia?

What is Dyspraxia?

Dyspraxia is also known as Developmental co-ordination disorder (DCD). Dyspraxia is a neurodevelopmental disorder, meaning that it is difficult for the brain to communicate effectively with the body. As a result, communications may be slow or inaccurate and certain tasks may be more challenging to complete. Dyspraxia is a condition that is known to affect an individual’s physical coordination. This can impact a child’s ability to take part in daily activities they enjoy and are expected of them. This could be running, playing hopscotch, or handwriting in class. Although there is no cure for dyspraxia and it is a lifelong condition, there are a number of ways that the difficulties caused by dyspraxia can be lessened to help children overcome some of their difficulties and make activities easier for them.

You may also notice that the symptoms of dyspraxia can change over time, or become less severe, this may be through practice, therapies, or naturally as the child ages.

When receiving a diagnosis, it can be difficult to process all the information you are given. In this booklet, we will talk about how dyspraxia affects your body, symptoms of dyspraxia, and how Occupational Therapy can help. We will include activities for you to complete with your child to aid you through the process of receiving a diagnosis of dyspraxia.

Did you know? Dyspraxia is thought to affect around 6% of the population, with 2% being affected severely.

How can dyspraxia affect the body? Neurological – the brain

Dyspraxia is a neurological condition, meaning it affects the brain and how the brain communicates. Some research suggests that dyspraxia is caused by neurons in the brain not maturing or developing quickly enough, which is why it is called a neurodevelopmental condition. Dyspraxia can make it difficult for the brain to send signals to the rest of the body, meaning that signals may be slow, get lost, or confused. The brain is split into different areas, including the motor cortex. The motor cortex is responsible for controlling muscles and their movements. This is where fine and gross motor skills are produced. Fine motor skills are considered to be movements using small muscles, and usually refer to the fingers in this situation. These movements require hand-eye coordination, and are used for activities such as handwriting, picking things up, as well as doing buttons or shoelaces. Gross motor skills on the other hand are movements using larger muscles, such as in the arms, legs and core (stomach muscles). These skills are used to perform movements such as running, jumping, maintaining balance, and lifting.

Anatomical – the body

As dyspraxia is a neurological condition, there are not many anatomical or biological affects on the physical body. However, it has been suggested that a physical symptom of dyspraxia can be muscle weakness, due to difficulties caused by the brain communicating ineffectively with the body, causing muscles to be underused, or not used appropriately. Now we will look at how these affects can be seen in the symptoms of dyspraxia.